Educational institutions have a lot on their plates: tracking student progress, managing alumni relationships, and coordinating course registration and scheduling, to name a few. The complexity of managing this data can lead to significant mishaps with real-world consequences.
The FAFSA blunder that was recently in the headlines is one glaring example. In May 2024, the U.S. Department of Education sent inaccurate financial aid assessments to colleges for roughly 200,000 students because of a vendor error in data processing. The error led to processing delays and incorrect financial aid offers, impacting students' college plans and dreams.
This incident clearly depicts the importance of robust data management systems in education. As databases grow more complex and diverse, traditional CRM systems often struggle to keep pace with educational institutions' unique needs. Unfortunately, schools face many challenges in effectively managing their data, such as adapting standard record types to education-specific requirements or ensuring compliance with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).
Let’s explore the complexities of educational data management, common challenges, and the impact of data management issues.
The Complexity of Educational Data Management
Educational institutions are information hubs, and keeping all that data straight in traditional CRM systems can be difficult.
Here’s an overview of the data educational institutions are responsible for:
- Student data: This can include everything from enrollment records to academic performance, dietary restrictions, and extracurricular activities.
- Parent/guardian data: A student might have two parents living under the same roof, or or may have multiple contacts, including step-parents or guardians..
- Faculty and staff information: Institutions need to keep employment records for professors, adjuncts, and staff members, each of whom has their own unique data trail.
- Alumni tracking: The relationship doesn't end at graduation. An institution’s database may include alumni career updates, donation histories, and reunion RSVPs.
- Admissions and enrollment data: The yearly influx of hopeful applicants brings its own data avalanche.
All of this data piles up quickly, and institutions need to be able to organize and keep it tamed. But this can be difficult, as there are many challenges that can get in the way.
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Common Data Management Challenges for Educational Institutions
Educational institutions face numerous data management challenges that can significantly impact operations, student success, and effectiveness. Let's explore some of the most pressing issues.
Adapting Standard CRM Record Types to Education-Specific Needs
Many educational institutions struggle to adapt standard CRM record types to their unique needs. Traditional CRMs are often designed for business sales cycles, not the complex, multi-year journey of a student.
For example, a university may need to track a prospective student from initial inquiry through application, enrollment, academic progress, and ultimately, alumni status, but this lifecycle doesn't neatly fit into standard CRM objects. Failure to adapt CRM systems effectively can lead to fragmented data, inefficient processes, and a lack of holistic student insights.
The Dilemma: Custom Fields vs. Custom Objects
Institutions often grapple with whether to use custom fields within existing objects or create entirely new custom objects. A recent interview with Olly Kenyon of HubGem focuses on this exact topic: how to decide which direction is best for each individual data point.
For instance, a college may debate whether to add major and academic advisor fields to the standard Contact object or create a new Student object. This dilemma can result in inconsistent data structures across departments, making it challenging to generate accurate reports and maintain data integrity.
Limited CRM Features for Education-Specific Data Structures
Many CRMs lack built-in features to handle education-specific data structures such as academic terms, course catalogs, or degree requirements.
A high school, for example, may struggle to efficiently manage data related to class schedules, extracurricular activities, and standardized test scores within a standard CRM. This limitation can hinder the institution's ability to track student progress comprehensively and make data-driven decisions.
Data Privacy and Security Concerns (FERPA Compliance)
Educational institutions must navigate strict data privacy regulations such as FERPA. The 2024 State of EdTech Leadership report found that cybersecurity is still the #1 priority for K-12 EdTech leaders.
This makes sense—a university or grade school must ensure that only authorized personnel can access sensitive student information such as social security number, grades, or financial aid details. Failure to maintain FERPA compliance can result in severe penalties, loss of federal funding, and damage to the institution's reputation.
Integration With SIS and LMS
Seamless integration between your CRM, student information system (SIS), and learning management system (LMS) is crucial for a comprehensive view of student data. But this can be easier said than done.
For instance, a community college may face challenges in syncing enrollment data from its SIS with student engagement metrics from its LMS and with the CRM. This lack of integration can lead to data silos, inconsistent information across systems, and inefficient administrative processes.
Tracking Student Progress and Performance Over Time and Using It for CRM Processes
Monitoring student progress and taking timely action can be a challenge using a traditional CRM out of the box. Lapses could result in a university struggling to identify at-risk students early enough to provide timely intervention. And this is a significant problem. In 2022, the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center reported that the six-year completion rate for students who started in the fall of 2017 was 62.2%. Such problems will only be exacerbated when institutions lack robust tracking and analysis capabilities.
Managing Relationships Between Students, Parents, Faculty, and Beyond
Educational institutions must manage complex networks of relationships. But this can be difficult to achieve when your CRM is outdated or lacks key features for effectively tracking and maintaining these intricate connections.
Effective relationship management requires capabilities such as:
- Multi-level relationship mapping: The ability to create and visualize complex family structures, such as guardianships and step-parents, or siblings attending the same institution.
- Role-based access control: Granular permissions that allow different stakeholders—such as teachers, administrators, and counselors—to access only the appropriate information for each relationship.
- Cross-object reporting: The ability to generate reports that span multiple relationship types to provide a holistic view of a student's network.
A K-12 school district, for example, may struggle to maintain accurate records of guardian relationships, emergency contacts, and authorized pickup individuals for each student. Failure to manage these relationships effectively can lead to communication breakdowns and potential safety concerns.
Reporting and Analytics for Educational Metrics
Generating meaningful reports and analytics from educational data is crucial for decision-making. Unfortunately, a recent report found that 98% of superintendents feel they don’t have access to the information they need to be confident in making decisions for their district.
Some may find it challenging to create comprehensive reports that combine admissions data, academic performance, and post-graduation outcomes. This limitation can hinder the institution's ability to assess program effectiveness and make data-driven improvements.
Failure to ensure consistent use of the CRM across departments from admissions to alumni relations will lead to incomplete data, inconsistent processes, and a failure to realize the full potential of the institution's data management investments.
The Impact of Data Management Issues on Educational Institutions
Allowing CRM issues to persist will only make matters worse. Here’s a look at the problems that can arise if you don’t nip your data management problems in the bud.
- Inefficient administrative processes: For example, a large university might struggle with duplicate student records across different departments, confusing enrollment and financial aid processes. The impact of such inefficiencies is substantial, resulting in wasted staff hours, increased operational costs, and frustrated students and parents.
- Compromised student support and personalized learning: Siloed data systems can hinder efficient tracking of individual student progress across multiple subjects. If unchecked, this can lead to missed opportunities for early intervention and support, potentially affecting student achievement and graduation rates, which in turn may impact a school’s funding.
- Reduced parent engagement and communication: A school district that struggles to maintain accurate contact information for parents across various platforms won’t be able to communicate with them effectively about important events or student progress. Poor parent-school communication can reduce parental involvement and support, which is crucial for student success.
- Challenges in tracking and improving educational outcomes: Consider a college unable to create comprehensive reports that combine admissions data, academic performance, and post-graduation outcomes. This can severely hinder the institution's ability to assess program effectiveness and make data-driven improvements.
- Difficulties in Alumni Relations and Fundraising: Without accurate records of alumni career progression and contact information, a university will miss opportunities for engagement and fundraising. The long-term impact of such difficulties can be substantial, potentially resulting in reduced alumni support and donations, which are crucial for many institutions' financial health.
How Insycle Helps Solve Data Management Issues for Schools
Educational institutions face unique data management challenges. Insycle offers powerful solutions to address these issues, streamlining processes and improving data quality for schools, colleges, and universities.
Identify and Fix Missing Alumni Contact Details for Enrichment and Improved Fundraising
The problem: A university struggles to maintain data quality across various departments, leading to inconsistencies and errors in student records.
The fix: Insycle's Customer Data Health Assessment automatically scans your database for over 30 common data issues and allows you to create custom templates for school-specific data problems. This proactive approach identifies and resolves issues before they impact operations. The following image shows an example of the health assessment.
For example, a school could track graduates that are missing contact information and use a data enrichment service to fill in the data gaps. Regular monitoring of data quality in this manner ensures accurate reporting, improved decision-making, and enhanced overall student experience.
Slice and Dice Student, Admissions, or Any Other Tracked Data in Your CRM
The problem: An admissions department needs to segment applicants based on various criteria, but struggles with the limitations of its CRM's reporting capabilities.
The fix: Insycle's Group and Update module allows you to analyze and segment data using any field in your database. This flexibility is crucial for educational institutions dealing with complex data structures.
With Insycle, you can easily create reports on student demographics, academic performance, or any other relevant metrics, regardless of how your CRM stores this information. Explore how to create clean, reliable school district organizational hierarchies for improved analysis and reporting.
Manage Associations Between Students, Parents, Staff, and All Relevant Record Types
The problem: K-12 school districts may experience struggles with maintaining accurate relationships between students, parents, and staff across multiple schools.
The fix: Insycle simplifies the process of creating and managing complex relationships within your CRM. So, whether you use default record types or custom objects, Insycle can help you establish and maintain these critical associations.
Schools can ensure that all stakeholders are properly connected by automating the association process and improving communication and data accuracy. Learn more about managing HubSpot associations in bulk.
Deduplicate Contacts, Students, Staff, Parent, Alumni, or Any Custom Object Type
The problem: Your CRM database contains many different types of records that you’d like to deduplicate, but you require advanced customization to match and merge duplicates in a variety of ways.
The fix: Insycle's Merge Duplicates module allows you to deduplicate any record type in your database, with advanced ways of matching duplicates using any field and full control over how data is retained during the merge, down to the field-level.
This flexibility is essential for educational institutions dealing with complex data structures.
Insycle gives you complete control over how the data is retained during the merging process down to the field level, ensuring that you never lose critical data when deduplicating.
By eliminating duplicates, schools can improve data quality, reduce storage costs, and ensure more accurate communication with students, alumni, and other stakeholders. Discover how to deduplicate records effectively with Insycle.
Standardize Address Data for Direct Mail Campaigns
The problem: Direct mail campaigns are a critical marketing channel for many schools, powering fundraising, recruitment, and parent education. But unstandardized address data leads to low delivery rates and errant deliveries.
The fix: Insycle's Group and Update module allows you to analyze and segment data using any field in your database, then standardize selected fields to your preferred format.
Clean, standardized address data ensures high delivery and response rates. Using Insycle, you can standardize any text field, including addresses, in your database, ensuring consistency across all records.
This is particularly useful for educational institutions dealing with varied data input sources.
Schools can improve data quality, enhance reporting accuracy, and create more effective segmentation for marketing and outreach efforts by standardizing key fields. Learn more about Insycle's data standardization capabilities.
Invite Unlimited Colleagues With Permissions Settings
The problem: A large university needs multiple departments to collaborate on data management tasks while maintaining data security and access control.
The fix: Insycle allows you to invite unlimited colleagues to your account, with granular permissions settings to ensure data security and compliance.
This collaborative approach enables schools to distribute data management tasks across departments while maintaining oversight and control. Explore how Insycle facilitates team collaboration on data management projects.
Using these powerful features allows your school to overcome common data management challenges, improve operational efficiency, and enhance the overall quality of its CRM data.
Insycle: Enriching Educational Institutions With Smart Data Management
Effective CRM data management isn’t just a luxury for educational institutions—it's a necessity. From managing diverse stakeholder data to ensuring FERPA compliance, schools face unique challenges that traditional CRM systems struggle to address.
Insycle offers a comprehensive solution tailored to the education sector's unique needs. By providing tools for data quality monitoring, complex relationship management, and flexible analysis across any record type, Insycle empowers institutions to overcome common data hurdles. Its deduplication, standardization, and collaboration features further enhance data integrity and operational efficiency.
Don't let data management issues hold your institution back. With Insycle, you can reshape your data management processes and use your CRM to its fullest potential. Ready to transform your institution's data management? Learn more about how Insycle can help you navigate the complexities of educational data.
